Untouchable
by Dukes126plus
Summary: Luke can’t be touched. Nothing can hurt him or even come close. From Route 7-11.


In this one, from _Route 7-11_, the boys have an established relationship. I considered piggy-backing it off a previous vignette, but this relationship seems to have gotten to the confortable stage, making me think it might have started before the series did.

* * *

Luke can't be touched. Nothing can hurt him or even come close. It's the kind of quality Bo has wished for all his life, to be that sort of matter-of-fact about something as crazy as jumping from a fast-rolling truck onto the hood of a passing car. But shoot, he's not even able to be nonchalant when it's Luke that's making the leap. His breath is held, burning in his chest, from the time the passenger door of the track's cab opens until Luke's right hand is waving at him from the General's passenger window. He tries to make his own answering wave and smile into something as laid-back as ol' Luke would give him, but even the feel of his face is tight, strained. He's mugging, like there's a camera somewhere and he's got to smile or it'll turn out to be another one of them snapshots like Daisy takes, where Luke looks eye-rollingly annoyed and Bo's got a slack-jawed dumb expression.

But it'll be smooth sailing from here. The risks involved are not to anyone's life or limb, and even if everything falls apart, the only thing lost will be Dewey Stovall's money. It's anticlimactic, really, after watching Luke hang over the road with nothing but air to hold him up.

After a fine game of football, he gets left behind with Jesse, sorting out truth from lies, while Luke and Cooter spin off for the county line. His untouchable cousin takes the final risk of the day.

It's well nigh onto dark when they all meet up again on the old splintered farmhouse porch. Cooter's still got his high pitched hoots and hollers at full volume, and Daisy's sexiest chuckle rings out like that dress she's wearing has turned her into the gold digger she was pretending to be. Luke's looking about ready to call this little adventure a day, but he accepts the beer Bo offers him and joins in the creation of myth, right alongside the best of them. (Leave Hazzard to it, and that truck will suddenly have thirty-six wheels and an Olympic-sized pool in the trailer.) Hot dogs and leftover potato salad appear on the tiny tray table Daisy uses when they snack out here, and everyone gorges themselves in celebration of the making of another Duke legend.

The old timer's voice is up there in a register that only the old hound dogs can hear, talking like he's the one who wanted to gamble in the first place. And Luke can't be touched, over there on the old, rusty kitchen chair, on the corner of the porch and the edge of the conversation, just smirking.

"Give you a lift home, Cooter?" Luke offers when the back patting and tall tales seem to be forking off into a whole different stream, one that tumbles over moonshine rocks, and splashes around between revenuer banks. Yeah, Bo doesn't want to hear about those good old days, either.

"Oh, hotcakes," Daisy offers, and it's not clear whether it's Cooter she's calling that, or Luke, but that costume has got to come off of her. "I'll do it."

Jesse nods his approval, and signals for the boys to help him clean up the mess. Within minutes, the old-timer's off to bed with promises from Luke about how the boys will handle the last chores of the night. Bo catches up to his cousin, finds him standing on the porch again, leaning on the old post there. Knowing Luke, he's counting the black spaces between the stars, making sure never to actually look directly at anything bright or cheerful in the spring sky. Two of Bo's fingers catch the bottom hem of Luke's old denim jacket and give it a tug. A quiet kind of an _I'm here_ gesture, since Luke's not the kind of guy that can be touched.

Unless he touches first, snagging an arm around Bo's waist and pulling him up close.

"You done good," Luke tells him, still staring off into the dark parts of the night.

Bo's got to disentangle his own arm out of the clutch Luke's got him in before he can use it to find the post on the other side of his cousin's shoulder. So long as he's got part of his weight braced there, he's ready to let the rest of his body lean up tight against Luke's. "You too," he answers, to a snicker from Luke. Of course I did, that little bit of laughter reminds him. Ain't nothing can touch me.

"Had me worried there." Low voice, just him and Luke in the world. "Rosco getting you at gunpoint. You coulda got hurt." No he couldn't have. Jesse was there, Luke was on his way, no one would have let any harm come to him.

He slouches well enough to rest his head on Luke's shoulder. Daisy could be home any minute now, and Jesse's not up to snoring yet. But he takes the chance, because Luke's warm and safe and for whatever reason, seems to want him there.

There's a kiss to his forehead, then the reminder. "You be careful," Luke says, as Bo's other arm comes around and finds itself a way to wrap around Luke's belly. Even when he lets himself be touched, Luke's as rigid as a board. Bo doesn't care as he tips his head up just enough to kiss the solidness of Luke's jaw.

"You too," is his reminder before Luke shoves them both away from the porch and off to the barn where there's work to be done.


End file.
